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Kerrin: Welcome to Transforming Energy, The NREL Podcast, brought to you by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. We’re highlighting the latest in clean energy research and innovations happening at the lab. I’m Kerrin Jeromin.
Taylor: And I’m Taylor Mankle.
Kerrin: Taylor, you know it’s not always okay to give away ages, but in this case we’re going to do it. Calling you out here- you’re a 90s kid right?
Taylor: That’s right
Kerrin: Do you remember Captain Planet?
Taylor: Of course I do, Captain Planet and his Earth-saving planeteers! Who could forget the cartoon that inspired this generation of recyclers.
Kerrin: Well, I’ve got a comic book for you that’s inspired by Captain Planet himself—only its heroes are super-powered by clean energy innovations instead of magic. It’s the Spark Squad comic series, created by three of NREL’s researchers.
Taylor: I’m already on Volume 2 of the series. Spark squad is my favorite!
Kerrin: Wait - even more than Batman?
Taylor: Oh come on, you can’t make me choose! But seriously, Spark Squad is awesome, it’s designed to get kids interested in STEM and clean energy technologies. In the first edition of the series, the kids used wave energy to power a boat through a violent storm. And this latest edition of Spark Squad is hydro-themed and takes place at the Richard B. Russell Dam and Lake in Georgia. But don’t worry—I won’t share any spoilers.
Kerrin: You better not. NREL’s Jennifer Daw helped create this volume of the series. Daw said that the hydropower industry’s workforce is facing a flood of retirements, pun intended. So part of the goal of this comic book is to help make hydropower more visible to a new generation of diverse workers.
Jennifer Daw: There's an aging workforce for hydropower. We are trying to raise general awareness of the industry and get people of all ages with relevant skill sets to want to work in hydro.
Kerrin: As the heroes of the series go on adventures, they’re introduced to underwater welders, hydropower plant engineers, and biologists collecting water samples.
Taylor: The latest volume also aims to address some of the misperceptions of today’s hydropower industry tainted by its less-than-rosy history. People hear hydropower and think of giant dams built without considering the best interests of local communities, ecosystems, or environments.
Daw: Well, that's where I feel like the misperceptions of the industry get in the way of people seeking it right, like there's this whole other side that in our work, we're trying to show that, hey, actually, there's like an environmentally friendly component.
Kerrin: Right. Today’s modern, low-impact hydropower technologies and plants—and yes, dams too—can help protect communities and the environment. Did you know that? Many dams—including the one the Spark Squad visits—employ biologists to monitor the health of their local environment and provide ladder-like structures that help fish move around the dam and migrate downstream.
Taylor: One of the creators of the Spark Squad Comic Books was actually featured on the Weather Channel recently. NREL’s Jenny Weigele shared her perspective on the comic book series:
Jenny Weigle: Our heroes are led by Jasmine and her friends--Aria and Thomas. And they all are excited about a specific type of renewable energy that they get to experience and analyze that's within the environment around them. So the whole goal is really to introduce kids on the idea of looking at their environment, and understanding how they can leverage some of the resources that already exist to generate electricity and solve some of the challenges that are in their community.
Kerrin: So you might remember in Captain Planet, a superhero is called up using five magic rings. In Spark Squad, Jasmine, Aria, and Thomas save the day by collecting very cute, playful cartoon joules— but not the pretty rocks we like to put in jewelry, j-o-u-l-e-s, units of energy. I know, very clever!
Taylor: Spark Squad is meant to be a bridge between renewable energy experts and the next generation. Through these comic book adventures, kids can start thinking about things that they can do to reduce their impact on the environment and figure out ways to generate electricity by using some of those same things in the environment.
Weigele: So in terms of what we're hoping to get out of it, there are a lot of programs that already exist for students in university programs, workforce development programs that exist when people are a lot further along and thinking about what they want to do with their career. What we're hoping that this will do though is get kids to start thinking about renewable energy, the challenges of climate change, the challenges of the impacts of the environment in our world today and the amount of electricity that we need to use to figure out how they can be a part of that solution.
Kerrin: The best part? The comic books are free and can be found on the Department of Energy’s website—that’s energy dot gov and just type spark squad into the search.
Taylor: Pretty awesome that something like a comic book series can spark interest in STEM and clean energy careers!
Kerrin: Love it!
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Taylor: We’re making our way through the elements today, because NREL’s wind team recently released a study that found that new tech innovations happening right now could unlock 80% more wind energy potential within this decade.
Kerrin: So cool. NREL has been studying wind energy technology innovations that can reduce the cost of energy just about everywhere in the contiguous United States and make clean wind energy more accessible. But “innovations,” I’m putting that in air quotes, is a pretty general word. Let’s break down what these tech innovations actually are.
Taylor: Let’s do it! Let’s start, there’s longer turbine blades, which help wind turbines capture more energy. There’s also taller towers, which can allow those longer blades to reach stronger winds farther from the ground.
Kerrin: Yeah, that’s a big change. Between the 1990s and today, wind turbine towers have increased from 30 meters tall to 90 meters tall! And with ongoing improvements that are close to being commercially available I understand, we will soon produce turbines where the blades reach higher than the Washington Monument! If you’ve ever stood next to it, that’s pretty tall-- 167 meters, or 550 feet, tall to be exact!
Taylor: Big time! But of course, with increased turbine height, we need cranes, such as climbing cranes, that allow for easier and more affordable installation. Another innovation is called low-specific-power wind turbines, which are turbines with larger rotors that can capture more energy—even in areas that don’t have a lot of wind. Like turbine height, power capacity has increased tremendously from .2 megawatts to 3 megawatts in the past 30 years or so, which means we’re getting more energy from each turbine. And finally, new manufacturing techniques like spiral welding and 3-D printing enable on-site creation of wind turbine towers, which reduce costs and transportation needed.
Kerrin: NREL researcher Travis Williams explained that this study showed that it is possible to expand wind energy into areas of the country it hasn’t historically existed. These are places like the Southeast, Gulf Coast, and parts of the East Coast.
Taylor: There’s a lot of benefits to expanding wind energy to those regions besides just helping the nation meet its clean energy goals. It would help enable local jobs and economic growth, and governments and utilities wouldn’t need to import energy from far-away areas.
Kerrin: But it's important to remember that even with these tech advancements, there’s lots more work to do. Policymakers, for instance, can play a big role to help reduce other barriers by increasing public understanding of wind energy, utility experience with integrating wind power into the grid, workforce capabilities, and helping developers bringing wind energy markets to new regions.
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Taylor: So we covered wind and water, should we cover earth next?
Kerrin: That sound like a knock off band of Earth, Wind, and Fire. All the elements. I just watched the Disney movie Elemental, so that’s what is in my brain right now. No really it’s bit of a stretch from our elemental theme going on here, but I’d actually like to talk about earth’s people. Specifically, in Los Angelesand Tehuantepec, in the Oaxacan state of Mexico.
Taylor: Got it—you’re talking about NREL’s behavioral science team and their recent study on how these cities are addressing inequities in plans for clean energy transitions.
Kerrin: That is exactly where I’m going. This is a tale of two cities, and I’m not talking about the Charles Dickens novel. While 2,500 miles and differences in size, culture, and climate separates L-A and Tehuantepec, they have similar ambitions for clean energy and similar challenges in establishing strategies that benefit the entire population.
Taylor: Similar ambitions with some key differences in approach. The study found that in Mexico, Indigenous people felt shut out of plans for a new wind power plant, while LA included members of underserved communities from the beginning, which positioned the California city for more widespread success in transitioning to renewable energy.
Kerrin: Indigenous peoples make up more than 34% of Tehuantepec’s population. It’s one of the poorest states in Mexico, and for centuries mining, textile, railway, and other industries have been prioritized over regional values and traditions.
Taylor: Meanwhile, Los Angeles has the second-highest poverty rate of all major U.S. cities. More than 16% of people live below the poverty line, and despite the dangerous triple-digit summer temperatures that are becoming increasingly more common, more than 30% of extremely low-income households lack air conditioning. Planners wanted to make sure these low-income residents weren’t left behind in the state’s adoption of clean energy technologies.
Kerrin: NREL’s LA100 Equity Strategies has set ambitious goals to power the city with 100% renewable energy generated-electricity by 2035. And leaders have quickly learned that everyone in the city needs to play an active role in order for the initiative to succeed.
Taylor: NREL behavioral scientist Nicole Rosner, who was an author on the LA100 Equity study, said that in the past even well-intentioned city planners may have just made token gestures to community members by sharing decisions that were already made. Instead, the community members need to be drivers of the decision-making process.
Kerrin: Absolutely. The team ultimately created a framework for organizations working to uncover and address energy inequities. The guidelines lay out questions for planning agencies, developers, and operators to ask themselves and the community at various stages of designing, funding, constructing, and deploying new large-scale clean energy initiatives.
Taylor: Yeah, it’s a great tool to get input from those who are often quiet or silent voices in the conversation. The guidelines make sure we are hearing from everyone.
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Taylor: You know I love to end episodes with a good fun fact, Kerrin, so here’s one for you, about the Clean Cities Coalition Network established 30 years ago by the U.S. Department of Energy.
Kerrin: Clean Cities Coalition Network is awesome!
Taylor: The network was created with the goal of boosting the country’s economic vitality, energy security, and overall quality of life through the advancement of affordable, efficient, and clean transportation fuels and tech. There’s more than 75 of these coalitions in urban, suburban, and rural communities across the country today.
Kerrin: Fantastic. I’m ready for that fun fact now.
Taylor: Alright, prepare yourself. Over the past 30 years, coalition activities have saved the equivalent of 13 billion gallons of gasoline, prevented more than 67 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions, and helped get more than 1.3 million alternative fuel vehicles on the road in the United States alone.
Kerrin: Well, that was like three fun facts in one! That’s really all incredible stuff.
Taylor: Oh, but that’s not all. The coalitions have drawn on technical assistance, data, and tools from DOE’s national labs, including NREL.
Kerrin: I love when we get to end with a fun fact – two apparently. And listeners, you can explore some of the Clean Cities coalition projects across the country that made those fun facts possible in a recent story published on nrel.gov. This has been another episode of Transforming Energy: The NREL Podcast.
Taylor: Make sure to rate and subscribe so you don’t miss an episode and join us again in two weeks for more news—and fun facts—from NREL!
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Kerrin: This episode was adapted from NREL articles from September 2023 authored by Caitlin McDermott-Murphy, Carol Laurie, Anya Breitenbach, and Joanna Allerhand. Our theme music is written and performed by Ted Vaca and episode music by Chuck Kurnik, Jim Riley, and Mark Sanseverino, of Drift BC. This podcast is produced by NREL’s Communications Office and recorded at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado. We express our gratitude and acknowledge that the land we are on is the traditional and ancestral homelands of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute peoples. We recognize and pay respect to the Indigenous peoples from our past, present, and future, and are grateful to those who have and continue to be stewards of this land.
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